WHO WE ARE
2021 has been a rollercoaster of a year. The world is still healing from the adverse effects of COVID-19 and adapting to this new reality. As new changes unfold in real time, one major evolution that has marked this year is the advent of Non-Fungible Tokens aka 'NFTs'. If you don't know what NFTs are, click here. Whereas this technology has been available for a few years now, 2021 shall go down in history as the year that it blew up. It has changed the lives of thousands of creators, seen many getting breakthroughs in an industry that numerous felt largely underappreciated, monetary-wise. It has sparked creativity, community and innovation as never seen before in what many are dubbing 'the digital renaissance'.
Project background
A few weeks ago, Obscura had an open call for photographers worldwide who would like to participate in their pilot project 'WHO WE ARE 200'- A collection of 200 portraits featuring creators at the forefront of NFTs from all over the world. I was lucky to be 1 of 2 Kenyans selected together with well over 100 creators across the globe. This project shall be highlighting a few of NFT pioneers from Kenya and a bit of their backgrounds and missions.
For my approach, I visited the creators in different venues that reflected their work to give the project a more organic feel. Enjoy!
1. Isaac Gitau
Isaac Gitau is a visual artist based in Nairobi, Kenya. His work ranges from photography to photo manipulation to videography. He uses his work as an outlet to express himself creatively. In the NFT space, he is still working to get his way into the community, learn more about crypto and find his tribe on Twitter. He has one collection on OpenSea titled ‘Feeling Blissful’ which is a series of self portraits mixed with digital manipulation.
2. Chelwek
Chela, AKA Chelwek, is a bubbly graffiti artist and illustrator. Her work is a stark contrast from her all-black outfit that she chose to wear for this shoot. It bursts with colour, emotion and is bound to leave anyone who is lucky to experience it in awe. As a traditional artist, she has done murals across the country, in the streets and several cafes in the city. Her work is easily recognizable with her signature style for painting her subjects with ethereal hairstyles, mostly blue, and Afrocentric themed patterns. As a quick and early adopter of NFTs, she has a lot of her work in digital form, available for collection as NFTs.
"Kenya is my home. The world is my playground." is one of her mottos that stuck with me as we shot in front of her favourite murals.
3. Akiba Haiozi
Akiba Haiozi is a Swahili proverb that loosely translates to ‘A reserve never goes bad’. With such a captivating moniker, Akiba is an embodiment of the sentiment. He is a multidisciplinary artist based in Nairobi, Kenya. His work ranges from illustrations to graphic design and merchandise design. He is one of the pioneers of NFTs in the Kenyan community and has minted some of his illustrations on Foundation and Rarible.
We shot these in front of his physical store where he practises his craft as a traditional artist through selling fashion merchandise with his designs printed on them, such as the hoodie in this series of photos.
4.Koech
Koech is a photographer and budding 3D artist. He is a super active community builder in the Kenyan NFT space through on-boarding fellow creators and putting Kenya on the map through his captivating landscape photography. His work is heavily inspired by nature's greens and is a constant appreciation of our daily surroundings. It was only right that we do this shoot in his natural (pun intended) element.
5.Ian Soi
Ian Soi, popularly known as Ian Tweezy to his 20K+ followers on Twitter, is a multidisciplinary artist. He has works in videography, photography, generative art and creative coding. He is always exploring his creativity through different mediums and it comes as no surprise he is one of the early adopters of NFTs in Kenya. His versatility makes it unpredictable to guess what he might be dropping next as NFTs, but it's always worth it.
Special thanks to Obscura for the amazing work they are doing for photographers worldwide by empowering them to pursue passion projects. Finally, thank you to all the creators who helped in modelling and the bts of this project. Find my selected portraits alongside 200 other portraits as NFTs here.
